


Catch My Disease

by gsmaxwell



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, M/M, SGA Reverse Big Bang Challenge 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:39:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsmaxwell/pseuds/gsmaxwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the SGA Reverse Big Bang 2013, forty minutes late )o.o( Written for the amazing Skitz_phenom and her wonderful art! </p><p>John and Rodney adopt a mythical baby goat. Chaos, predictably, ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch My Disease

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skitz_phenom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skitz_phenom/gifts).



 

 

 

 

Sometimes, Rodney would have a spare moment between his third or fourth cup of caffeinated-beverage of the morning. Sometimes, he used that time to think about the unfixable medical scanner on Level 13, or Dr. Katsumata’s kind of genius yet still somehow mediocre equation that could one day negate the need for ZPMs, or whether or not he could rig the ancient Ancient trolley cars in the lowest levels of Atlantis, pre-transporter era he suspected, into a kind of roller coaster system for John and the kids on the mainland.  

 

Other times, he spent watching Lekvonski and that pocket-protector Belgian chemist make eyes at each other across the cafeteria and realised just how high school-like Atlantis was sometimes. 

 

Rodney, of course, had only spent six weeks in high school before being recruited by CSIS when he hacked into their database with nothing more than a homemade dial up connection in his closet. But he was a genius, he didn’t need four years to figure out that high school was like a Petri dish for future human social interaction. 

 

And if, let’s say, a social experiment went horribly wrong, like Rodney’s unfortunate stage where he believed poetry was the one true way to woo a girl’s heart, one could just destroy the evidence in a biological hazard waste removal bag where no one had ever heard him rhyme “mitosis” with “precocious” from the top of a cafeteria table to a horrified fourteen year old cheerleader.

 

Though he lamented the lost chance to perfect his cheerleader woo-ing ways, there was an upside to being a social anomaly. It was more than a little wonderful to be living in a world where it was not only acceptable but expected for him to order pizza every night in Doritos covered boxers, yell until his opponents gave up their lab times, and spend weeks conversing with only his cat. And when the balance of what-people-wanted-from-him started to become outweighed by what-people-would-put-up-with he could just pack up and move.  

 

When he had stepped through the worm hole into Atlantis, it took him about a month to realised Atlantis was a Petri dish, only the only way to dispose of a failed experiment was the self-destruct button and he wasn’t sure he could convince another senior staff member to synchronize codes with him each time he pissed someone off.

 

“Did you get your degree from the bottom of a cereal box? Or was a man in a long trench coat handing them out on the playground? Give me that, before you break something important and kill us all!”

 

Japanese-Naomi (not the same person as American-Naomi, who was a biologist not an engineer as Rodney had found out during a critical conductor repair the week before) scurried to the side. It had only been a few weeks since they had come through the gate and already Rodney had scared off most of his staff. Without her, admittedly small and nimble fingers, in the way, it was easy to clip off the last of whatever wires were sparking and he let out a breath as he pulled his hands from the console. 

 

But when he looked up, instead of seeing Japanese-Naomi’s teary-eyed face, he was met with a bemused, spiky haired ex-pilot. 

 

“Do you always abuse your staff like that or is that McKay for tugging on a girl’s pigtails?”

 

Rodney glowered, he didn’t have time for this. Unlike certain military personnel who apparently had nothing better to do than slink around in dark corners making snide remarks about his people skills of all things, if he didn’t move on to the next project, German-doctor-who-had-hogged-the-best-shower-at-McMurdo would electrocute everyone in the gate room.

 

“Thank you, Major, for your advice. I’ll pass it on to your underlings the next time you make them run from the cafeteria to the gate room instead of using the transporters. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have more idiots to fix.”

 

“McKay,” Sheppard held up a hand as Rodney tried to push past him. Maybe it was the amused tone or maybe it was how suddenly the feeling of another person’s hand felt on his chest (not metal, not a machine, but honest to God flesh and bone restraining him) but Rodney stopped. 

 

“Major, I wasn’t joking about-”

 

“Are you busy after that? Whatever it is you’re going to do.”

 

“Am I- Of course I’m busy!” Rodney couldn’t help but sputter. “Do you even know what I do around here? It’s not all just touching things and, poof, magic!”

 

“Magic,” Sheppard repeated and then glanced at the door. “Well, when the world is done being saved, I’m doing some non-Ancient-touching magic in my quarters. You should join me.”

 

Rodney must have spent too much time running around because he suddenly realised it had been a month already. And it must have been lonelier than he registered because even in just a month, in Atlantis, it seemed a curious one-over eye glance could morph into an intrusive glob of sin and discrepancy after a run through the rumour mill. But despite that (or maybe because of it, he had a half a pound of chocolate pudding wagered on Bates and the curly-haired geologist), and the resulting inescapable drama that might spawn from the one-over John was currently giving him, Rodney glanced back and thought, oh. 

 

The poetry was unnecessary, it seemed.

 

Then, later, after they had been too fast to even get properly sweaty and Rodney slunk back to his own room using a tablet as a defence shield against nosy passer-by’s, he was too satisfied to hear the warning bells clamouring in his brain that this was a Bad Idea.

 

***

 

M5X-909 was supposed to be an economic recon mission. M5-909 was supposed to result in things like new kinds of food, seeds for the Athosians, and a networking, cross-planetary meet up where they could connect with a dozen worlds without ever setting foot on them. 

 

But somehow, well, perhaps not somehow because Rodney was certain there were more than a few Ancient ghosts hanging around playing some kind of weird, twisted Big Brother/Survivor game with their lives, things ended up going the exact opposite of what Rodney wanted. It wasn’t that Rodney didn’t plan for all these missions to go sideways, his brain was like a supercomputer of hypothetical bad outcomes, but even he hadn’t foreseen the strange circumstances that had led to them standing in front of the gate. 

 

Rodney could see Woolsey’s blood pressure rising with each miniscule squilsh of animal dung under his previously pristine boot. Rodney curled his socked feet defensively at the sound.

 

“It’s not like we could just leave it there.”

 

The subtle lift of Woolsey’s eyebrow indicated his disagreement but John stood his ground. As if sensing that it was its fate being discussed, the small goat-like creature cradled in his arms let out a sudden, alarmed bleat. 

 

“I’m certain of the protocols in place for just this situation.” The words sounded like Woolsey was grinding them out through his teeth. “The ecological impacts of transporting live animals through the gate without the proper blood work-“

 

“Blaaaah!” the cry this time the animal tried to struggle out of John’s grip. It was irritating, Rodney decided, that John could hold a squirming baby goat-beast as calmly as if it was P-90. When it had been Rodney’s turn to hold the damn thing it had peed on him.

 

Woolsey closed his eyes as if gathering his strength. “John, surely the people of M5X-909 are better equipped to raise it in the village. With its own kind. In a field. And open air. I’ve heard most animals enjoy things like that.” 

 

“Blaah! Blaah! Blaaaaaaaah!”

 

“Shush, Kyle,” John bounced the shaking animal in his arms reassuringly, shooting Woolsey a disappointed look. “The big, bad Woolsey isn’t going to send you back to that mean, nasty man, don’t worry.”

 

“Blaah,” the bleat was more of a whimper as the baby twisted his head around to get a better look at the room. It really did look like a goat. It had knobby, hairy knees that crossed as John shifted it into a better hold. Its ears were long and through they weren’t flopped down they looked heavy enough that they drooped at the sides. Rodney wasn’t sure what colour the animal was as it was covered in the thick, grimy sand that made up the majority of M5X-909’s barren landmass. 

 

“Regardless,” Woolsey said in a dry tone now, the voice of a principal faced with the class clown one too many times, “I’m going to need a full report. As soon as possible.”

 

“Okay, well, let’s just toss Bambi in a crate and-“

 

“Rodney!”

 

“I meant now, gentlemen!”

 

***

 

“My people have been coming these gatherings since I was a little girl,” Teyla had reassured them during John’s briefing. “The market is not held often, or in the same place twice, so we shouldn’t miss this opportunity.”

 

It had started simple enough. They had traded their P-90s for more concealable weapons and Teyla had taken the lead. M5X-909 looked like something out of a sixties sci fi show. There was nothing but dusty rock and barren land with a few scraggly bushes looking thirsty and prickly. Somewhere on the planet there was supposed to be a science lab built by the Ancients so long ago even the Ancient database hadn’t been able to tell them when. There wasn’t even a left behind native population, though when Rodney looked around he could see why. There wasn’t anything that could sustain a small mammal let alone a civilization. 

 

“Are you sure it was a science lab?” John had looked across the rocky dunes sceptically. “This has weapons testing range written all over it.”

 

“Yes, I’m sure,” Rodney had rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing to blow up.”

 

“It’s just that science labs are usually around sciency things. Trees, overgrowth. Giant, poisonous lizards.” 

 

“It’s nice to know what you consider ‘science-y’. I’ll be sure to tell that to the space ship you are currently living in. You know, the giant not-green thing that runs fairy dust.”

 

The market was a distinct cornerstone of the desert. It stretched almost half a mile around the mostly flat area by the gate with what seemed like thousands of people from all over the Pegasus galaxy bringing anything and everything they could afford to trade. When they had stepped through the gate for the first time with a group of Athosians, Rodney had realised he hadn’t seen so many people in such a small area since he had been back on Earth. 

 

“Such gatherings are rare, of course,” Teyla had said when Rodney pointed it out as they helped to push the steel carts filled with Athosian handmade wares and crops, and simple Earth military supplies they had a surplus of over the hard terrain. “But we only hold them for short periods and very far between. The last one took place before you had arrived on Athos. And people are prepared for a Wraith attack.” She nodded to where a neighbouring group had set up what looked like a giant high powered crossbow. The man operating it gave a toothless smile and waved cheerfully as Rodney stared. 

 

Atlantis was there as part of the Athosian invitation and Teyla had given them a final warning to keep their hands to themselves unless they were interested in buying and to not insult any of the non-local locals. 

 

The day had started off well. Teyla had caught up with old friends. John had found something shiny and sharp that had kept him occupied. Even Ronon seemed to be enjoying the relatively quiet mission. Rodney, himself, had even found a seller with a bag of junked technology that he spent over half an hour bargaining over. In the end he had managed to get whole thing for a quick sketch of an irrigation system.

 

It was all going well, which was why Rodney felt so stupid for not realising that was one of the cardinal Bad Signs on an off-world mission. 

 

“What’s that?” Ronon pointed out a dusty tent on the outskirts of the markets, just behind a pot seller who was napping in the hot sun. 

 

Teyla looked and the sighed, irritated. “I would have thought after all this time he would not be invited back.”

 

John stopped swinging the single edged sword and looked at the tent with a new interest. Rodney rolled his eyes. For an Air Force Colonel, John had the attention span of a five year old sometimes. 

 

“What did he do?” Ronon asked. 

 

“It’s nothing,” Teyla replied dismissingly and started to shift through the sleeping seller’s cracked pots. “He does not so much sell wares as sell… entertainment.”

 

Rodney, who had been concentrating on the cracked view screen of what looked like a hand held Ancient scanner (“Tricorder!” Rodney had shoved it in John’s face smugly. “Tricorder!”), fumbled and nearly dropped it. “Entertainment? Like… entertainment?”

 

Teyla glanced up to see her team mates looking at her like she had just casually stated there was a full ZMP in the tent. She frowned and dropped the dish back down with a clatter, waking the man with a start. “I did not mean that kind of entertainment.”

 

“Still,” John said after a short pause. “We should at least take a look while we’re here.”

 

As they approached the tent, Rodney saw it was a bit more decrepit than it had been at a distance. An old man with greased back hair and bare feet was sitting on a woven rug outside the tent and fanning himself. There was something about his smug look that reminded Rodney too much of a car salesman that had sold his mother a car with squeaky brakes when he was a child. John was twirling his sword again, slowly, as they approached the opening. 

 

“Good day, wanderers,” the man greeted them and Rodney definitely had a sour feeling about him. “Have you come to uncover the mythical creatures of the Ancestors’ great imaginations? This tent houses terrible secrets of the realm unknown to man! Many have lost their minds upon entering, are you of the few brave enough to expand your minds?”

 

Ronon snorted and tapped his fingers on his blaster. The man let his eyes linger on the weapon but, to his credit, didn’t flinch. 

 

John raised an eyebrow and glanced at Teyla who was rolling her eyes so hard Rodney was certain she was going to give herself a seizure. “In my experience, the Ancestors’ imaginations are best left uncovered,” John replied. 

 

“What kinds of creatures are we talking here?” Rodney cut in, ignoring John’s disapproving look. “Like, cute and cuddly or toothy and fire-breathing?”

 

“I dare not say,” the man latched onto Rodney. “But what is contained within those walls is beyond anything ever seen in any of the worlds I have been on.” The man had stood, leaning in close enough to put a hand on Rodney’s shoulder, and making John frown, irritated. “Inside is a treasure so precious, so secret, even I have yet to fully comprehend its magnitude. It holds, in its humble abyss, relics of a past age, of a past people, and, I promise you, good sir, it is worth its weight in pure gold just to stand in its presence.”

 

“I’ll give you my friend’s sword.”

 

“Deal.”

 

“Hey!”

 

The tent was dark and musty and smelt like the animal pelts it was made of. Outside, the sun had been hot but inside the tent it was sweltering. 

 

“You can’t just go trading my things like that,” John grumbled as he stepped into the tent after Rodney. 

 

“It’s for the sake of science,” Rodney waved a hand distractingly as he stepped up to the first exhibit. He could feel John still bristling behind him and he knew that split second, genius, he might add, bit of bargaining wasn’t going to be forgotten so easily. Maybe he could rig something up on the Jumpers. 

 

Despite the heat, the darkness, the smell, and the fact Ronon had to duck to stand, Rodney found himself mildly impressed. The tent was split by hanging cotton curtains to guide people through. He hadn’t expected the inside to feel so large. No one in the group seemed to share his thoughts, though, because John pushed forward without comment. 

 

The first corner had several skulls displayed on a box and John crouched to look at them. 

 

“What is that?” Rodney leaned over his shoulder with a morbid fascination as John picked up one. It was large enough that he needed two hands, long and pearly white as the small candle on the box made the eye sockets flicker with shadows and seem much larger than they must be. 

 

“It looks like a horse or something,” John turned it over in his hand carefully. He ran a thumb thoughtfully on the space between the eye sockets and Rodney could see a pronounced indent. 

 

“It’s supposed to be a duolituus, a mythical creature,” Teyla said from behind them, her arms crossed and her expression matching. “But mostly likely it is some kind of commonly hunted animal.”

 

Ronon snorted. “Great trade, McKay.”

 

Rodney scowled but before he could make a witty retort, John had put the skull down and gotten out of his crouch with a minimal grunt. “So, what, this is the Pegasus equivalent of a two headed cow freak show?”

 

“Essentially, yes,” Teyla sighed. 

 

Rodney bristled as John let his eyes slid over in one of his semi-amused I-told-you-so smirks. “Sake of science?”

 

“Two-headed calves, radiation, it’s important,” Rodney knew he was grasping at a rapidly shrinking rope. “Very sciency.”

 

John stared at him for a moment then smirked and Rodney was suddenly glad the shadows of the cave could obscure his face. “Whatever, let’s get on with it.”

 

Rodney took back what he said about the tent being a piece of interior ingenuity. The candles gave way, fortunately for the integrity of the tent, for weird, glow-in-the-dark blue rocks. It meant Rodney didn’t worry about the whole thing going up in flames but it also meant it wasn’t light enough to see where his feet were falling which meant with each step he landed on one’s ankle. Each turn meant an encounter with something weird and, usually, dead. More bones, glass containers with intestines floating in liquid, some cave-like paintings of a bright glowing creature with a horn. 

 

“Is that a-“ Rodney’s voice trailed off as he took in the painting.

 

“It’s a duolituus, yes,” Teyla has gone from cross to angry to resigned at being once again the tour guide on Rodney and John’s great big Pegasus galaxy adventure. “There appears to be a theme to this… educational facility.” Ronon laughed as he tapped one of the glass containers with his knuckle.

 

“It looks kind of like a unicorn,” John said bluntly.

 

“Clearly not,” Rodney jabbed at the painting, “It has two horns. See?”

 

“What exactly is it mythical for?” John ignored him. 

 

“It varies,” Teyla frowned in concentration. “I believe mostly it’s known as a symbol for purity. Innocence. It is in many children’s stories.”

 

John enounced slowly. “Unicorn.”

 

“I get it, okay?” Rodney threw up his hands. “This was a stupid idea! But you are going to be leaving unicorns out of the reports, right? I’m pretty sure Sam still reads them.”

 

“But what if it’s important, Rodney?” there was a mocking tone in John’s voice that usually happened when he was doing something like (allegedly) beating him with their race cars. “It could be a huge cultural discovery for the anthropologists.”

 

“Ha ha, as if these kinds of discoveries are important to anyone besides journals for hacks. No offense, Teyla.”

 

“Let’s just finish, shall we?” 

 

The rest of the tent didn’t hold much else and Rodney seethed a little. He was never going to hear the end of this, not even if he managed to jerry-rig the roller coaster to loop out over the water. 

 

But, as they turned the last corner (John had hung back to poke something squishy and a little too oozy for Rodney), Rodney had known he was going to meet the creature of his doom-

 

( _“Doctor McKay, really, I don’t think you need to be so verbose-“_

_“You wanted a complete report, Woolsey, you’re going to get one.”_

_“I simply wanted to know why you felt the need to bring the creature back here, and what happened to your shoes.”_

_“We couldn’t just leave her in the cage, sir, she couldn’t even stand up properly. And besides, it’s not like we’re not equipped to handle a little baby goat, are we boy?”_

_“Blaaaaaah!”_

_“But your shoes-“_

_“They were the only pair that fit the guy and really, I think it was a pretty good bargain.”_

_“I said I was sorry about the sword, Colonel.”_ )

 

***

 

Rodney hovered by the door as Keller poked and prodded the wide-eyed Kyle. He had managed to grab a spare pair of boots from the supplies kept in the Gate Room for circumstances just like this. Well, circumstances similar to this. John stayed in the room. He kept a steadying grip on the young animal as Keller drew blood and squinted at old corners. 

 

“It’s kind of fascinating, actually,” Keller commented as she peered into one of the floppy, long ears with a light. “How mundane it is. It kind of reminds me of farm animals back home. You know, four legs, two eyes. No tentacles or mind-melding powers.”

 

“And how is something being too ordinary that fascinating, exactly?” Kyle gave Rodney a blank eyed look at his tone and Rodney felt a little unnerved. 

 

“Ordinary is relative, Rodney,” Keller said with a roll of her eyes. John smirked at Rodney’s indignant scoff. Keller ignored both of them as she pulled Kyle‘s eyelid back to the animal‘s sudden, bleating protest. “Earth’s farm animals might be the Pegasus’s Loch Ness monster. Have you even read the zoologists’ monthly reports?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why am I not surprised?” Keller said mostly under her breath and took a step back from the exam table. Kyle’s small cloven hooves clattered on the metal table but John kept it from moving too far. “And anyway, you should probably take this thing down to be seen by them as well. As far as I can tell there are no skin infections, nothing to indicate it’s sick. I’ll run the blood work for anything I can find but, honestly, I’m not set up to be a veterinarian office. Maybe the zoologist lab has come across it before and we can at least get it back to its original planet.”

 

“Come on, Rodney,” John hefted Kyle off the table. “Last time I was down there, Montgomery let me touch one of their baby rabbit-gerbil things. It’ll be fun.”

 

Last time Rodney had been in the zoology lab (yes, Keller, he did know where it was. He placed them as far away from his own workshop for a reason, after all) he may or may not have called Dr. Overly-Large-Glasses a glorified dog trimmer. 

 

“Thanks, but no thanks. I have more important things to do than aggravate my allergies. Tricorder, remember?”

 

“Suit yourself, Rodney. Are we still on tonight?”

 

Rodney glanced at Keller, who was now engrossed in her computer screen. “Of course.”

 

***

 

When Rodney went back to John’s quarters some time later, smelly clothes and pinching boots changed for something much more comfortable, he wasn’t exactly sure what he expected to see. 

 

It certainly wasn’t an Air Force Colonel clad only in boxers and a tee-shirt dashing around the room, soap suds whiffing gentle in his wake. 

 

“Shut the door!”

 

Rodney barely had time to think ‘close!’ before Kyle had launched off the Colonel’s bed and towards freedom/Rodney’s crotch. 

 

He managed to dodge to the side, years of off-world chaos finally paying off, and Kyle skidding across the floor, smacking soundly into chair by the door

 

“Grab her!” John had jumped on the bed mere seconds after Kyle had done his leap. Rodney reacted to the order without thinking, dropped to his knees and grabbed the slightly dazed, sopping wet baby goat-thing in his arms. 

 

“What the hell?” 

 

“Sorry,” John was panting as he climbed down to sit on the edge of the bed. “She’s wily.”

 

“She?” Rodney echoed as he looked around the room. Normally, John’s room was orderly, a weird mix of Spartan military efficiency and the inside of a college freshman dorm, though between the scented candles and football posters Rodney couldn’t decide what gender. Now, however, all those things that seemed to fit exactly in their designated spaces were scattered around the room. The Johnny Cash poster had remained intact on the wall but one curtain was tugged half off the wall, floating sadly along the frame. Several of the candles were over the floor and the scratchy wool blankets Rodney loathed were littered around the floor. Even John’s clothes, normally hidden out of sight so well Rodney often felt John’s wardrobe came in two styles, black casual and black combat, weren’t spared and more clothes that Rodney knew John owned were tangled in the bed sheets. He felt a small bit of admiration for such a small animal to cause such a mess.  

 

“Yeah,” John ran a hand through his hair, shaking out the water. He frowned at his wet shirt. When he pulled at it he made a face as it _shluck_ ed back. “Dr. Wu said it was a girl.”

 

“So it’s Kailee now, huh?”

 

“Why would it be Kailee?” 

 

“Girl, boy, all the parts are… different. Different name and such. Ah, watch it!” 

 

Kailee-Kyle, still obviously feeling the small taste of freedom it had enjoyed before, started to buck in his hold. Rodney set her on the ground as another hoof kicked dangerously close to his groin but her in a firm hug-hold. 

 

“I like Kyle.”

 

“Well, then you get to be the one to explain to her why all the other boy goats on the football team have different parts down there. Why are you so wet?”

 

“I had to give her a bath,” John stood up with a grunt and pulled his wet shirt over his head. “It was fine until I had the water on and then the whole shower just went berserk. You should really look into that.”

 

Rodney let himself look for a moment as John strode across the room to the small bathroom the living quarters all had section off inside before replying. “I’m more than just a plumber you know.”

 

“I know,” John’s voice echoed from inside the other room. Rodney sighed and slowly loosened his hold as Kyle tilted her head to sniff curiously at his face. “You’re a plumber who can fix alien toilets. You’re a space plumber.”

 

Now that she wasn’t covered in a layer of sand, Rodney could see that she was light blonde colour with patches of white on her belly and chin. She was still wet and her hair was plastered to her body but already he could see long white hairs beginning to curl at the bottom of her chin. She was well on her way to being completely adorable. 

 

She tilted her head up, eyes soft and venerable as she started to sniff along his ear. Yeah, she was a little cute. Her whiskers tickled along his jaw line, her muzzle was unbelievably soft. Rodney hadn’t spent much time around baby animals, he much preferred older, grumpy cat-like creatures because he could relate to the utter distain. But the more she explored his face with an innocent curiosity, he decided maybe babies weren’t so bad. The irritable, resentful feeling he had built up carrying her around the hot, sweaty desert started to melt. 

 

“By the way, she bites!”

 

“What?” Rodney jerked sideways and deceitful little milk teeth chomped the empty air where his ear had just been. 

 

“Sorry!”

 

Rodney hastily pushed her out to arm’s length. “Why are you giving her a bath in your quarters? Why is she in your quarters in the first place? I would have thought the zoologists would be more than happy to keep her around and, I don’t know, do what zoologists do. Go through its feces or equally disgusting.”

 

“They looked at her and fed her something. She’s perfectly healthy.“ There was a pause, then, casually, “They were going to put her in a cage.”

 

“Yeah, Shepherd, that’s the zoo part of zoology.”

 

“They didn’t have a good one, okay?”

 

Kyle had apparently decided Rodney wasn’t as tasty as she had though and had started looking around the room. Rodney gingerly let her go. She sniffed around the ground before taking a few wandering steps back towards John’s bed, inspecting everything along her way suspiciously.

 

“What constitutes a good cage?”

 

“One that has, I don’t know, room to run? Some grass, some toys. Open sky.”

 

“None of those things are in the definition of a cage.”

 

“You know what I mean. She’ll be happier if she can roam around.”

 

His knees creaked a little as he stood, sand was much more difficult to walk on all day than the packed dirt paths he was used to, and he started to gather together the whirlwind bed sheets. “If you’re not going to put her in a cage how exactly do you think you’re going to keep her on Atlantis?”

 

“I’m not going to keep her on Atlantis,” John retorted but Rodney knew him well enough to catch the guilty-I’m-not-lying-in-a-big-way tone in his voice. “And it’s not like she’s that big. It’ll be like having a dog.”

 

“A mascot,” Rodney corrected and groaned as he straightened from where he had bent to untangle a pair of pants from the overturned chair. “You want us to have a mascot, don’t you?”

 

“She is pretty cute.”

 

“She bites.”

 

“That’ll be useful.”

 

“I’m sure enemy troops will run from terror at our attack…. goat,” Rodney glanced back to where Kyle had started to chew on one of John’s fake plants. “Did Teyla ever figure out what it was?”

 

John finally emerged, in a dry shirt to Rodney’s disappointment. He rubbed at his hair, grimacing as water still dripped onto his ear. 

 

“She radioed through the gate, Ronon and her are almost finished with helping the Athosians. She says no one recognised the picture.”

 

“Well, maybe if we served it up in a steak we could jog a few more memories.”

 

“Rodney.”

 

“What? You ate the gerbil-rabbit things last week no problem.”

 

“They didn’t have names,” John said sourly. 

 

“As much as I enjoy discussing the ethics of imposing human qualities on animals, what other reason did you ask me here for?”

 

John raised an eyebrow and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘that stupid whale’ but said out loud, “Once the market is finished I’m going to take a team over to see about using it as a testing ground for some new equipment Cadwell brought on the last transit. It’s going to be abandoned for a while so we don’t have to worry about disturbing the local population.”

 

“You’re just happy you found a place you can blow a bunch of stuff up. Hey, hey, hey, not food!” Rodney yanked his pant leg from Kyle’s teeth, startling the animal back towards the shower room. “Did you see that? She’s bloodthirsty! I’m not having her on my team!”

 

“I guess you’re not going to like my next suggestion.” John had let the towel drape over his neck, his hair still in a state of disarray but not wet anymore. “I need someone to look after Kyle.”

 

“You really can’t think-”

 

“Come on, it’ll only be for a few hours, a day at most!” 

 

Rodney looked to the two bright eyes peered around the doorframe and then to John leaning back on his half made bed, then to the litter of clothes, cloths and destruction around the room. “I hadn’t realised we had moved onto the adoption stage of our relationship.”

 

“It’s not like it’s a kid or anything. It’s like a dog.”

 

“John, it’s exactly like a kid. A kid goat. And I’m hardly a dog person either.”

 

“So, it’s like a cat?”

 

“I can’t bring her around with me! I work with very delicate stuff, you know. One slip,” Rodney mimed an explosion with his hand, “you won’t have an Atlantis to gate back to.”

 

“She’ll be fine on her own for a while.”

 

“Why would you even think I’d care about a probably-flea infested donkey?”

 

“I don’t know, Sam,” John rolled his eyes. “I just figured you would appreciate some bonding time with the new member of our team.”

 

“That’s not going to happen, Colonel.”

 

“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but if you don’t take care of her while I’m gone I’m going to take her with me and then she’s definitely going to stay on if she’s already field tested.”

 

“Fine.”

 

_Ring, ring, ring_ , those warning bells lit up in Rodney’s head but he was only half conscious to them. The rest of his mind was too busy looking at the way John’s knees were splayed invitingly. John smirked in a way that made Rodney’s bristle because he wasn’t agreeing for that reason. John wasn’t so amazing in bed that Rodney would t have taken care of Miss Bitey just for that. It was because Rodney wasn’t that horrible of a human being, and he opened his mouth to reprimand him but then John reached to tug his hips closer and he decided that his virtue wasn’t important enough to defend. 

 

The thing was, Rodney had never gotten the hang of a secret relationship. He could keep secrets, he was sure there was military hit man with his prints and DNA code somewhere in Colorado just waiting for him to slip up, but he wasn’t good at being a secret. It had ruined things for him in MIT, an outpost position on an island in the Pacific, and what was supposed to be a one night stand at a Germany conference but ended three months later with him in boxer briefs that weren’t his, shimmying down a fence as her husband arrive home early. 

 

But somehow it had worked with John. Things had been… easy. There hadn’t been a need to talk about it, the frantic teenage-like gropes in dusty labs, nights after missions that had been particularly hairy, times like this where they used it as a currency exchange- it had all been like puzzles locking into place. Rodney didn’t need an on/off switch between the times he and John played air hockey on the conference table and when John sucked his brains out against a locked door. 

 

It was nice. Easy. And, most of all, wonderfully, effortlessly secret. 

 

“Wait, wait,” Rodney shoved John’s hands away. “She’s watching.”

 

“No she’s not,” John whined. 

 

“I’ll lock her in the shower.”

 

Kyle was looking at him suspiciously as he herded her into the room and then touched the door mechanism with a firm ‘lock’ command. When he turned back, John had already stripped off his shirt and was tugging the bed sheet back on properly. 

 

“I’m going to meet Zelenka in twenty minutes so we have to be-”

 

Swoosh, Rodney jumped at the door behind him opened suddenly. Kyle bounded out the door and bleated proudly. 

 

“You’ve got to lock the door if you want it to stay closed,” John said, amused, and Rodney shot him an angry look. 

 

“Get back in there, you little ungrateful beast,” he hissed at Kyle who bleated again, this time less proud and more questioning as Rodney pushed her back in the room. Lock. 

 

He turned around, his hands already on the hem of his shirt to pull it up when, a frustrating _swoosh_. 

 

“Just leave her,” John was unbuckling his belt as Kyle bounced out of the room this time and ducked between Rodney’s legs. “Twenty minutes right? How scarring can that be?”

 

“They must have disabled the lock on that door,” Rodney frowned at the door, feeling a little betrayed for some reason. “Maybe some kind of safety measure.”

 

“Rodney.”

 

“Yes, yes,” Rodney tugged off his shirt quickly. He glanced at Kyle sniffing at the wall on the other side of John’s table near the door, thoroughly occupied and out of sight of the bed for now. “Okay, okay, take your pants off.”

 

But John didn’t get that far because the twenty minutes were now down to eighteen and Rodney half tackled him on the bed. He had his hand in John’s pants, John fumbling with Rodney’s zipper, already when-

 

_Swoosh_. 

 

“Bla!”

 

Rodney only ever moved that fast when he was dodging bullets. John was up with his shirt already over his head as Kyle trotted out the open door into the hallway. Rodney grabbed his own shirt and followed, a stabbing fear pounding in his chest until he reached the somehow open door and empty hallway.

 

“Rodney, come on!”

 

He tugged his shirt the rest of the way down and jogged down the hall to where John had disappeared around the corner. 

 

Who had he been kidding, secret was only a state until it wasn’t anymore and that had been perilously close to collapsing in on itself. 

 

Rodney turned another corner, directed by the curious stares of two Marines, and nearly ran straight into John’s back. 

 

“Missing something?” Ronon sounded amused, which was good, because standing lightly on his shoulders as if he were a jungle gym instead of one of the most dangerous men Rodney had met in two galaxies, was the terror herself. Ronon had tilted his head to the side so she could balance across his broad shoulders, and crossed his arms with a smirk when he saw them.

 

“Thanks, big guy,” John was uncharacteristically out of breath, and Rodney suddenly didn’t feel so bad for his own dishevelled state. “She’s fast!”

 

“Yeah,” Ronon raised an eyebrow at them. “Good jumper. Jennifer said she was with the zoologists.”

 

“That didn’t go as planned. Wow, she’s pretty nimble, isn’t she?”

 

At that moment, however, Kyle decided Ronon’s head probably resembled the vegetation she was familiar with because she seized part of his hair and yanked. There was a tumbling mess as Ronon jumped in surprise and her precarious perch shifted too fast for compensation. John moved quickly though, and managed to catch her as she tumbled from Ronon’s shoulder.

 

“Teyla went with one of the groups.” Rodney couldn’t help but note that Ronon was gingerly cheking to make sure his hair was still intact and, though Ronon could pull off smouldering badass in situations ranging from bridesmaid in a highly ceremonial wedding on MF-009 to daisy rings braided into his beard, it was gratifying to know that Rodney wasn’t the only person Kyle could catch off guard. “She’s trying to find the tent guy to figure out where he got her. Some people think he might have stolen her or something.”

 

John batted Kyle’s curious teeth away from his shirt collar with ease and nodded. “Good. The sooner we can find this little girl’s home the better.”

 

Rodney rolled his eyes, not five minute ago John had practically been planning tiny BDU gears. He couldn’t tell if John was had just been lying to him or lying to Ronon but there was no way John was going to just release the thing on a planet willy-nilly. His train of thought was interrupted though, as Ronon made an excuse about sparring with the new marines and then threw back over his shoulder, “McKay, did you know your shirt’s inside-out?”

 

***

 

Rodney had kind of assumed taking care of the little monster would like looking after his cat. Leave it alone for twenty hours and then tip a can of food in a dish and dangle a piece of string for a little while. Sure, it wasn't a cat, it was more like a barnyard animal, but how different could it be? An animal was an animal and it's not like sheep and the like were the smartest animals around. A goat-proof room, maybe a remote camera hook up to make sure she didn't eat something with too much radiation and he wouldn't have to slow down his productivity while John was off exploding whatever goodies Cadwell had been allowed to transport. 

 

But it took about five minutes to realised his plan wasn't going to work. 

 

"Uh, Doctor McKay?" Japanese-Naomi interrupted and his white board marker squeaked loudly. 

 

"What?"

 

"I-it's Kyle, doctor, it's-"

 

However Rodney could clearly see what Naomi was pointing out, even without her trembling voice, because Kyle had somehow opened the door Rodney had rigged to be specially coded, and even though the camera feed was a little grainy, he could almost feel the gleeful evilness as Kyle placed a cautious foot in the hallway. 

 

It took fifteen minutes, two engineers and a passing Russian to chase her down and another ten to catch their breath. Rodney’s science team was field ready, sure, but Kyle was clearly in another league than hostile villagers and angry swamp monsters. The Russian had earned a hard kick in his thigh and hobbled away muttering just about every curse word Rodney had learned when he had been exiled to Siberia. 

 

Next, he tried tying her with some braided rope, looping it into a halter-like shape and tied her to his lab bench. His unbolted lab bench. 

 

It took half an hour to make sure the equipment that had tumbled to the hard floor weren’t as broken as the poor table. 

 

“Maybe she wants some fresh air,” Radek had finally said with a tight voice as he taped together his glasses. “She’s a baby, Rodney, surely if you exercise her she’ll sleep.”

 

“Oh, I thought running over half of Atlantis had been exercise enough, thank you so much for your input,” Rodney snapped. Still, he couldn’t do his job with her tugging him around the lab like he was the one on a lead and, as much as Rodney complained about them, his team could handle the ongoing research for a while without him. He did swipe something from the pile of unknown junk though, nothing was more boring than a stroll. 

 

Kyle wasn’t exactly graceful on the lead but she learned quickly enough she wasn’t actually strong enough to pull Rodney along and there was no use trying to plant her heels because Rodney was only too happy to stop. 

 

They ended up on one of the piers near the ocean and Rodney felt it was safe enough to let her go. There was nowhere to escape to from here, besides the water, and though she was adventurous she seemed nervous enough of the edge to keep from jumping in. Instead, she trotted around, her little straggly tail waving happily in the breeze, and sniffed the mini-golf course someone had set up. 

 

Rodney settled on a bench near the door, the only means of escape, and pulled out the handheld device from his pocket. It wasn’t exactly a tricorder, at least nothing pre-Next Generation. It was obviously Ancient though the power was long dead. Rodney turned it over and over in his hands before he found a small groove with his fingernail and pried the back open. There was always a trick to these Ancient devices, Rodney had found over the years. The Ancients on Atlantis liked to build back doors into everything they made. Rodney supposed after the Wraith fiasco and rouge nanites they had learned they always needed an exit strategy though more often than not it failed spectacularly. Rodney found himself wished they had invented the off switch before the on but they were hardly around for him to lecture. 

 

Once he had the back open it looked similar to most Ancient tech and he was able to find the backup power reserves in it.. “I got you now,” Rodney chuckled and remembered to look up to where Kyle was chewing on something plastic but durable. Perfectly safe. 

 

It was exactly like a tricorder, Rodney took back his previous thought with glee. Screw John and his Star Wars, the best tech was obviously in the Trek-verse. He would never ride in the Millennium Falcon unless he could check the vacuum seals on every micro-centimetre but the Enterprise was as solid as a rock. 

 

It was definitely looking to scan something, now if only Rodney could figure out what it was looking for-

 

“Blaaaaaah!” Kyle’s voice was so full of alarm Rodney nearly dropped the tricorder. The deck was rumbling under his feet, the vibrations making everything not bolted down start rattling with an alarming intensity. Was it an earthquake? It had been ages since Rodney had felt one and he was overly sensitive to those kinds of things. But when he looked out he saw it wasn’t a natural phenomenon; the last third of the pier had started to detach from the main section of Atlantis with a horrible, steel wrenching sound. The mini golf green had been over-laid the previously non-existent gap and the little windmill with a patriotic Dutch flag fell, crushed between the exposed gears.  

 

Rodney shoved the tricorder back into his pocket and gripped the wall to keep on his feet. The moving portion was far enough away that he wasn’t too concerned about falling into anything, but Kyle, of course, was skidding around the end of the pier, on the wrong side, wide-eyed and terrified. 

 

“Damn it!” Rodney let go of the wall and ran as best he could over the trembling ground until he reached the handrail. The gap was getting bigger and he had to use the handrail to steady himself as he peered over the edge. It was only about two feet wide but getting wider. A quick glance down and all he saw was the innards of the pier, sharp metal and dark, churning water below. Before he could talk himself out of it, he jumped across the gap, catching the handrail on the other side to keep from falling over on the much more unstable section, and Kyle tipped, spindly-legged, to him, almost tumbling over the gap in the rail before Rodney grabbed her with a spare hand. 

 

It felt like forever for the section to detach, and then several seconds longer for the now-free pier to stabilize in the choppy water. Once it did, it started to chug steadily in the complete opposite direction of where Rodney wanted it to be. 

 

He wrapped an elbow around the railing, sinking to the ground so he could brace himself and Kyle better, and tapped his radio. This was going to be one of the harder things to explain. 

 

***

 

“A life boat?”

 

“Yes, Rodney.”

 

“A life boat.”

 

“Yes, Rodney.”

 

“No, just, explain it to me again. A _life boat?_ ”

 

“Conceivably the Ancients might have had to escape from Atlantis, no? What better explanation do you have?”

 

“They have Jumpers, the Gate- why would they need a life boat?”

 

“I don’t know, Rodney,” Radek pushed his glasses up irritably, still taped on one side. “Why don’t you build a time machine and ask them why they do half the crazy things they do.”

 

“But why did it detach?” Rodney clutched the wool blanket tighter around himself. It had taken a few minutes for a Jumper to reach them and the ocean air had been cold. “We’ve used that pier for years now and it’s never so much as looked funny let along spontaneously jump ship.”

 

“It must run on thought patterns, like, the chair and such. Maybe must respond to a strong desire to escape, or a feeling of danger. Or maybe Atlantis saw a chance to get rid of you,” Radek chuckled at his own joke but cut himself off with a cough when Rodney glared. “Or maybe it malfunctioned.”

 

“Yeah,” Rodney looked at him sideways. “Malfunctioned.”

 

Kyle, now on somewhat solid ground, had climbed into Rodney’s arms and not stopped trembling since her adventure. It would have been cute if her hooves hadn’t dug into his legs painfully. He had to carry her; every time he set her down and tried to lead her again she twined between his legs and tripped him up so he found himself carrying her from the Jumper to the infirmary (again) and now the lab. Now he sat here with her tucked into his blanket like she was a lamb or something and not the terror that he knew her to be.

 

“What were you doing before the pier came off?” Radek reached out to pet Kyle gently but she kept her jaw firmly nuzzled into Rodney’s armpit. “Was there anything unusual? A sound or lights perhaps.”

 

“Nothing unusual,” Rodney shifted her around to a weak bleating protest and dug the tricorder out. “But I did turn this on. I got it off world at the market, I think it’s a scanner or something. I didn’t get a chance to really look at it though.”

 

Radek took it as Rodney fixed the blanket and squinted. It was still on, making a tinkering noise which Rodney took to mean it was still a little broken. “I’ve certainly never seen it before.”

 

“I know that,” Rodney snapped. “Unless you’ve been moonlighting the labs, I doubt you’ve seen more Ancient tech than me.” Radek opened his mouth to argue but Rodney was damp and cold and not in the mood to banter. “Do you think it’s the control device for the pier?”

 

“No, no it’s definitely a scanner. Oh, wait a minute.” The tinkering noise quieted and a green light flashed on the top. “I think it finished scanning.” 

 

“Scanning what?”

 

Radek looking at the display carefully and if Rodney hadn’t had an armful of baby-goat-thing he would have snatched it out of his hands. “You,” he said finally. “It was scanning you.”

 

“What did it say?”

 

Radek took another long silence and Rodney was half a second away from dumping Kyle on the ground and grabbing the device, morals be damned, when Radek turned around the screen and Rodney could clearly see the Ancient equivalent of “CLEAR” written. 

 

“Well,” Rodney paused. “That’s good.”

 

“Clear of what?” Radek turned it back around and started to tap at the screen. “I don’t understand-“

 

“ _Doctor McKay._ ”

 

Rodney squirmed to tap his radio. “What is it now?”

 

“ _Colonel Sheppard is being brought in, Doctor_ ,” Chuck’s voice was calm and steady but the deceitful bastard sounded calm and steady when the self-destruct was counting down in the background. “He and another member of his team are unconscious. They’re being brought to the infirmary. I thought you would want to know.”

 

“What, did he blow himself up?” Rodney let the blanket flutter to the ground as he stood. “Never mind, I’m heading there now. Radek,” the shorter scientist had jumped to his feet with Rodney. “Keep looking at that, I’ll be back.”

 

***

 

It wasn’t as if Rodney had never seen John in the sick bay. Over the past few years, he had gotten far more comfortable around the smells of sanitizers, starched fabrics, and the coyly sweet scent underneath it all than he cared to admit to himself. He’d like to say it was because his best friend for two years was a geneticist but, in fact, it was his time spent in and out of that very bed John was currently occupying. 

 

“McKay,” Keller looked up from the monitors and sighed. “You can’t bring that in here. I’m trying to limit exposure to the Colonel and-“

 

“If you have a better place to put her then let me know,” Rodney snapped. A quick glance and Rodney saw that John hadn’t, in fact, blown himself up. He looked whole, four limbs and hair still attached, just pale and still. 

 

The toll of carrying Kyle around for so long was starting to tell on his shoulders. She wasn’t exactly a light weight but he didn’t want to put her on the floor in reach of all the equipment. John looked uninjured, just unconscious so he put her at the foot of the bed. 

 

“Hey!” Keller had the reactions of a rattlesnake sometimes. “You definitely can’t put her on the bed.”

 

“Okay, I’ll put her next to your glass vials and expensive equipment- oh wait, that’s a terrible idea! Now, what’s wrong with him?”

 

“And she has a name, you know,” John’s raspy voice made Rodney jump. “Come on, doc. There are therapy animals in hospitals, right. Just think of Kyle as a golden retriever or a really big cat.”

 

“You’re awake,” Keller shoved Rodney aside to start her poking and prodding. “Those are healthy, highly-trained, professional service animals, Colonel. I wouldn’t even know what to vaccinate you against.”

 

Kyle let out a sad little bleat.

 

“You hurt her feelings,” John shoved himself more upright, wincing as he moved. Rodney pushed Kyle up the bed, despite Keller’s angry mutters. John raised a hand to pet at her but ended up weakly gripping the furry side of her neck to keep his hand from falling back down. 

 

“What exactly happened to him?” Rodney kept a firm hand to keep her from wandering feet over sensitive body parts. He wasn’t about to let the commander of Atlantis die from a kick in the groin. She seemed content to just stand on the narrow portion of the bed between John’s torso and the side of the bed. John looked as white as the starched sheets under his head, the other colour in his face dark black circles under his eyes. It was as close to corpse-like Rodney had ever seen him and somehow it was even worse than the bug-thing. 

 

“We’re not exactly sure,” Keller, resigned to being ignored, moved to unlock the medicine cabinet for something. “He was unconscious when they brought him and Pavkovic through the gate.” She gestured to the other bed. The marine was unconscious, or hopefully sleeping, but Rodney didn’t recognise him. “Colonel what were you doing right before you fainted?”

 

“Fainted?” John started to shift higher on the bed, jostling Kyle from her perch and Rodney had to tighten his hold. “It was less fainting, more manly passing out.”

 

“John,” Rodney snapped. 

 

“Fine, fine,” John rolled his eyes. “We scouted the area to make sure everyone had cleared out before setting up our gear, then, you know, boom, explosions,” John made an exploding gesture with his hands and Kyle started, stomping hard on his thigh.

 

“Rodney!” Keller jumped forward at John’s cry but John had already tugged Kyle down off her feet so she was cuddled against his chest. “Colonel, stop moving!”

 

“Don’t worry, I got it,” John was sitting up now, neatly tucking Kyle into a more comfortable position. “I feel fine.”

 

Surprisingly, the Colonel even looked fine. His face wasn’t pale anymore and the dark circles around his eyes had faded. It was like something that poured life back into an empty vessel.

 

Rodney glanced at Keller but she had obviously noticed the drastic change as well. Her lips were pressed together but her voice was steady and at ease when she asked, “So when you did this manly passing out, did you blow up anything… Ancient?”

 

John shot her an incredulous look but when he opened his mouth to reply an alarming series of beeps started from the other bed. 

 

Kyle struggled as John held her, bleating loudly as nurses and doctors that moments before seemed like invisible backdrops moved into a flurry around the bed in a curtain adjacent to John’s. 

 

“Who is that?” John asked. Rodney leaned to get a better look. 

 

“One of the new guys, you know, the one Teyla gave a black eye when he said that thing.”

 

“Pavkovic- did they bring him in with me?”

 

“I guess,” Rodney shrugged and, healthy looking or not, Kyle’s kicking was starting to escalate and John had looked like he had been dying not five minutes before. “They said you and someone else were brought in.”

 

“The rest of them-”

 

“I haven’t heard anything but I assume they’re fine,” Rodney managed to pluck Kyle from John. She calmed with her feet firmly under her but she was far from relaxed. The alarms slowed and returned to normal as Keller stepped back from the bed, her face pinched. 

 

“Sorry, Colonel. I’m going to keep you here overnight. Sergeant Pavkovic came in the same as you,” she gestured to where the man, who had a husky build and just a week before had been very loud and vocal about his opinions of ‘backwater martial arts’. Now, he looked sunken into the bed with an IV and oxygen mask. “I don’t know what causing it but his body keeps trying to just shut down. We have him stabilized for now but if you relapse I want you right where I can see you.”

 

John saluted her with two fingers but his face was clouded as he continued to start at the Sergeant. 

 

“So I guess I’m stuck with the rug rat for a night, huh?” Rodney sighed.

 

“Just don’t let her stay up all night eating the curtains or running through the halls,” John said easily and finally turned back to Rodney. “The zoologists said they would have more food for her by tonight so you should stop there when she gets hungry.”

 

“I can’t promise those thing,” Rodney said as he hefted her over the side of the bed. She stood comfortably on the floor but kept her side pressed into his knee as if reassuring herself that he was still there. “She’s worse than Houdini. I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

 

Later, after feeding her, trying to convince her to poo somewhere he wouldn’t have to clean up, feeding himself, and blocking the door in his quarters with his desk because it seemed the Atlantis lock malfunctions weren’t limiting themselves to just the bathroom doors, he finally lay down in his bed with a sigh. Kyle had finally worn herself out. She had curled up on a folded blanket Rodney had put on the floor for her. Rodney wanted to wait until she was asleep before he drifted off but as her eyes slowly drooped lower and lower he closed his own for half a second. 

 

***

 

“ _Doctor McKay, you’re needed in the infirmary_!”

 

Rodney snapped awake. The sun was shining through his window. His blanket had been tugged off during the night and flung over the room. His trash had been upturned and the few papers he kept around as most of his information reached him via tablet nowadays were shredded. But, most importantly, it was silent and empty.

 

“ _Doctor McKay_?”

 

“Hold on!” Rodney snapped as he activated his radio. “Is it John? What happened?”

 

“ _Doctor Keller said to meet her there right away._ ”

 

He climbed over the desk too quickly and tumbled into the hall as soon as he could open the door. It wouldn’t be the first time he jogged through the halls in creased clothes though most of the time it was for some kind of power malfunction, or impending death. People knew well enough to get out of his way by now and a blonde-haired woman jumped out of his way at the transporter. 

 

When he reached the infirmary, it was clear why Keller had called him down. “What happened? He was perfectly fine when I left!”

 

Keller looked up annoyed from where she was injecting something into John’s IV. “He was perfectly fine when I left too! His heart monitor sounded less than fifteen minutes ago but the night nurses say he has been asleep through the night.”

 

Yesterday, John has been the colour of bad milk but now he looked more grey, like an old, washed out rag. The beeping of the monitor was the only thing that made him appear to have any life at all. Rodney touched his hand- the skin was leathery and cold. 

 

“But-“ Rodney trailed off and held onto John’s wrist. The world felt a little dizzy.

 

“I don’t know either. I’ve pumped him full of everything I could think of. Pavkovic too,” she pointed to where the other man lay. The only difference between the two men was that now Pavkovic had a plastic tube coming out of his mouth and was attached to a wheezing blue machine that moved steadily with the exaggerated rise and fall of his chest. “Some men went back to search the site, see if they actually hit something, but so far,” she closed her eyes. “I just don’t know, Rodney.”

 

Before Rodney could reply, his radio taped again and he almost ripped it from his ear because it suddenly didn’t matter if Atlantis was in the middle of a meltdown. “Rodney, you need to see this-“

 

“Radek, whatever it is-” but he was suddenly having a hard time summoning up his usual anger. “Just fix it on your own.” He did take the radio from his ear, then, because seriously if Radek couldn’t handle a little crisis now and again they were seriously all doomed. However, before he could interrogate Keller more thoroughly, the alarms by Pavkovic’s bed started to alarm again. Last time, the nurses and doctors had rushed to the bedside with concentrated faces and skilful speed. Now, though they were still fast and efficient, there was something strained in their voices and it wasn’t just the usual, sharp, commanding tone Rodney heard in emergencies. 

 

He stood next to John’s bed, his radio dangling in his hand, feeling useless, something that was very unsettling for him. He kept his other hand on John’s wrist, concentrating on the _thumpthumpthump_ under his fingers.

 

“He’s back,” Keller said finally, leaning away from the bed. She looked exhausted, dark circles under her eyes that weren’t as prominent at John’s but dark nonetheless. “Keep him on this cycle and we’ll see if he improves.”

 

“Jennifer,” Rodney called and she looked up startled. “What’s going on?”

 

“I don’t know, Rodney. I just- I just thought it would be best if you sat here with him.”

 

“ _Doctor McKay-_ ” Radek’s voice sounded small and tinny in the radio, slightly muffled in Rodney’s fist. Rodney found the familiar flash of white-hot rage and jerked his hand to yell at someone, just to make himself feel a bit better, when Chuck’s annoyingly steady voice came over the all-Atlantis call system. 

 

“ _Colonel Sheppard, Doctor McKay to the Gate Room_.”

 

“Go,” Keller said. “Rodney, you should go.”

 

“But John-”

 

“I’ll make sure he’s here when you get back.”

 

Usually, when Rodney was stressed or angry he let off steam with his words. It was satisfying. He never understood people like John or Ronon or Teyla who took to running or hitting things or sitting really, really still. But as he ran to the Gate Room, probably faster than usual just because he liked the impact of his feet hitting the ground, he suddenly realised that it all stemmed from the same place. His words destroyed whatever was bothering him (usually whatever person happened to be in his way) in the same way the John took out his anger on his body, Ronon hit something until his hands bled and Teyla- well, he supposed Teyla was working things out as well though he had never thought about making the anger settle inside himself until it was nothing at all. 

 

He made it into the Gate Room in good time. Each time there was an incident like this it got his heart pounding. Was it the Genii? Was it something stupid like kids trying out a prank call? Was it Earth saying they had been overrun and needed to evac now? But everyone seemed quite calm when he arrived so he almost turned heel back to the infirmary when Chuck saw him and called for him over.

 

“Missing something, Doctor?” Chuck was half smiling and Rodney found himself scowling because there was nothing funny about today. But when he looked to where Chuck was pointing he saw what would amuse his fellow countryman. 

 

“For God’s sake, she’s just a baby! If that‘s how you deal with children I‘d wouldn’t put you in charge of a flock of geese!” Rodney yelled at the three Marines trying to trap Kyle into a corner beside the stairs. The Gate was activated but clearly whatever had been dialled had been dialled from the inside out. Kyle seemed to have heard him because she bleated excitedly, ducked between the legs of one man and clattered up the stairs. 

 

She looked fine for having been on the lamb for however long she had escaped for but Rodney dropped to a knee to double check her for cuts or bruises. The Marines were right after her and she ducked behind Rodney as they approached, their boots heavy and guns clinking in the holsters. 

 

“Sorry, Doctor,” It was one of Cadwell’s new recruits. “She was trying to go through the gate and we weren’t sure if it was even a planet-side gate or not-”

 

“Yes, yes, good job and all, I’ll be sure to inform the OSPCA when I get home,” Rodney snapped. “Who dialled the gate?”

 

There was an uneasy pause before Chuck said hesitantly “We don’t exactly know. It came in a little while ago and I must have had my back turned because one minute it was jumping from the chairs and the next-”

 

“What, are you saying she dialled it?” Rodney tugged Kyle in front of him and thrust her little face into Chuck’s. 

 

There was an awkward silence before Chuck hesitantly said, “Maybe she jumped on the panel.”

 

All the words Rodney wanted to say jammed in his throat as they tried to leap out all at once. Instead, he pushed Kyle out again and she let out a pitiful, “Bhaaaa.”

 

“It sounds crazy, but-“ that was Gallagher, Rodney actually remembered her name. “She didn’t touch the device. She just- stared at it.”

 

Rodney remembered Gallagher as being fairly level-headed and no-nonsense (at least, when John had tried to give his Delorian theory she had cut him down so badly at movie night John had pouted for at least a week). So he appreciated that she at least looked uncomfortable with the idea of Kyle somehow using Ancient technology. But, seriously, these were highly trained people for God’s sake and Rodney was suddenly finding himself questioning the faith he had in SGC’s recruiting parametres. Rodney could feel his patience wearing thin because he had much more important places to be. 

 

“She was looking at it, pretty intently for, uh, sheep-thing. But then the gate started to dial. There was no one else here, it must have been her.”

 

“So, what you’re saying,” Rodney could feel the words grinding out, “Is that an infant goat-thing somehow managed to dial the gate, without using any kind of device, with the power of its goat mind?”

 

“I think I heard Teyla refer to it as a duolituus, Doctor,” the last Marine in the trio said politely.

 

“Where is Colonel Sheppard?” Gallagher asked suddenly. “We knew he was sneaking the thing into his room. I spoke with him last night when I went to visit Pavkovic and he said he would be back on duty today. We thought he would come to get it.”

 

“Well, he’s not,” Rodney snapped, too irritated to deal with them anymore. “Figure this out and don’t come back to me until you have a better explanation than _psychic alien goats_!”

 

He didn’t have to carry Kyle this time. She seemed to sense his black mood and follow him meekly as he stomped to the infirmary. Keller didn’t even comment on Kyle this time when he walked in. She was hunched over a computer with the same strained expression she had when he had left. She did glance up when he walked in and gave him a tight smile. “Everything all right?”

 

“Psychic alien goats,” Rodney bit out. She didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebrow and turned back to the information scrolling down. 

 

Kyle trotted ahead with her tail high. Where ever she had been that morning she seemed to have adopted an attitude about Atlantis. Gone were the curious sniffed and starts at every dark corner. Rodney decided to ignore her because nothing he did seem to keep her out of whatever trouble she wanted to find and pulled a stool up to John’s bedside. 

 

He supposed he should wonder why Keller was so concerned that he be here. Sure, he and John were friends and had been friends for the past several years, and he knew he owed John more than a bedside service for all the times John had sat by his side. But a nagging voice in the back of his head wondered if maybe his other relationship with the other side of John wasn’t as secret as he liked to believe. Something else was nagging there, something he was clearly missing, but each time he tried to think about he saw John’s chest rising shallowly and it was chased out. 

 

Kyle jumped, suddenly, from the opposite side of the bed onto the white sheets by John’s feet and Rodney stood to shoo her off before she jostled any of the machines. But she picked her way carefully up the bed and, despite her earlier energy, settled along his side between the bed and his bare arm. 

 

“Don’t eat anything,” Rodney said sternly though she seemed to be ignoring him. She laid her head on John’s shoulder and pressed her muzzle on his thin looking collarbone. 

 

There must be something seriously wrong with John if it stilled the whirl winding beast. Rodney found he couldn’t look anymore and pushed away from the bed. 

 

“ _I swear to God, Rodney, if you don’t answer soon, I’ll-I’ll-_ ”

 

Ready to be distracted now, Rodney picked up the radio from where he had left it on the heart monitor and put it back in his ear. “Okay, fine, tell me what you found.”

 

“ _Finally_ ,” Radek sounded angrier than Rodney had ever heard him, and he knew he pissed off the man more than most people. “ _You shouldn’t take you radio off like that, what if there had been an emergency?”_

 

“Well then we’d all be dead, wouldn’t we?” Rodney snapped. “Just tell me what is so important you couldn’t wait until I came in?”

 

“ _Naomi figured out that the scanner is looking for a specific virus. We haven’t figured out which virus it is but it’s definitely something that attacked the ATA gene. We just have to figure out which outpost the scanner came from. Do you recall anything about that_?”

 

“That’s not important enough to bother me about right now,” Rodney went to take the ear piece out again but Radek cursed at him in Czech. “Alright, fine, no they didn’t say where they had found it but the guy didn’t seem to know much about it at all. The rest of the stuff he had plenty to say about. Look, now is not really a good time-”

 

“ _I’ll come to you, where are you?_ ”

 

Rodney sighed, “The infirmary. Bring me something interesting to work on while you’re at it. Oh, bring me that thing we think might be laser gun.”

 

“You guys have a laser gun?”

 

Rodney whirled around at John’s voice, shaky and small though it was. Keller smacked her knee hard into the computer as she jumped up. John smiled back at them with his eyes still half closed, patting a patiently stoic Kyle clumsily. 

 

Five minutes late Keller didn’t have an answer. Ten minutes later, John was sitting up as if nothing was wrong and asking if there was anything left over from the mess because he was starving. Fifteen minutes later there was still no answer and Keller had the restraints half way around John’s wrists as he tried to get out of bed. 

 

“For the last time!” Keller snapped at John, her mild-mannered, dower face now spitfire angry as her patience finally left. “If you dare get out of that bed I’ll knock you out again myself because I can fix a concussion!”

 

“Fine, fine,” John grumbled but settled back down. “I don’t get what the big deal is.”

 

“The big deal,” Keller shoved him further into his pillow, “Is that I’ve just spent the last several hours trying to keep your body from killing itself and, trust me, it really doesn’t like you for some reason.”

 

As John opened his mouth to argue again, Radek finally appeared with the tricorder in his hand. Rodney saw he had also brought the laser gun but his eyes were draw to the tricorder because it suddenly started to trill loudly and flash red. 

 

He snatched it from Radek before the other man could react to it. The screen flashed an angry, red “CONTAMINATED” across it. John and Keller stopped fighting long enough for Rodney to shove Keller aside and hold the scanner directly in front of John’s face. 

 

He ignored John’s questions because anything anyone else was saying was just a stupid distraction because the screen flashed again “CONTAMINATED”. He turned abruptly, marching over to Pavkovic’s bed where it again gave an irrefutable “CONTAMINATED”. 

 

“That’s the first time it’s done that,” Radek told John and Keller somewhere in the background. 

 

“Radek, you said Naomi’s been working on it?”

 

“Yes, she was walking by and-”

 

“I need to speak with her, now.”

 

It was American-Naomi-the Biologist not Japanese-Naomi-the-Engineer but Rodney didn’t even notice as he grilled her on everything she had discovered about the device right in the infirmary. No, it wasn’t a virus as Radek had said, yes, it was a biological deformity that the device was picking up. Yes, it was affecting the ATA gene, no, she didn’t know why. But when Rodney asked her what exactly the deformity was doing, it was Keller who answered. 

 

“I thought at first it was a chemical or something, that maybe the team had triggered an attack on the planet. It’s attacking the body’s system too neatly for it to be a naturally occurring disease and everything I try it can work its way around. But the other two team members didn’t get sick. John-”

 

“Yeah, Pav wasn’t the only other gene carrier on the team,” John said quickly. “Anthony was as well.”

 

“But only you and Pavkovic have a natural expression,” Keller said, tapping quickly though a screen and pulled up the health files to show them. “Anthony went through the gene therapy just before coming here.”

 

“So, what, it’s a gene-attacking biological weapon?” John asked. “That seems pretty stupid. Why would the Ancients try and create a weapon that only kills themselves.”

 

“Well, it’s not like the Ancients were all friendly with each other,” Radek said. “We know many Ancients were exiled or left Atlantis for many reasons.”

 

 

“That science outpost must have been where they were developing the weapon and you released something you shouldn’t have,” Rodney scowled at John but John just shrugged. 

 

“So it was a weapon’s testing ground after all.”

 

“Yes, yes, you win, fine,” Rodney fussed over his IV, scowling. “But if you’re contaminated, then how are you not dead?”

 

“Blaaa.”

 

All four pairs of eyes turned to rest on the little goat-beast-thing as it let out a tired yawn. John patted her on the head then said, “Well, she is a unicorn.”

 

Kyle was cranky as John shakily got out of bed but she let herself be carried over to Pavkovic’s bed and settled on his side. It took longer than it had with John for him to wake up but the effect was almost immediate. His heart rate rose steadily and the intubation tube had to be taken out. When he did open his eyes he looked confused but alert and, when the situation was explained to him, he patted Kyle dutifully.

 

Rodney looked at where John gave Kyle an affectionate scratch under her chin and the sick, twisted feeling in his stomach lifted a little.

 

***

 

Twenty hours later, however, Rodney found himself not as cheerful. 

 

Whatever Kyle was doing for the two men was good but they quickly realised that the touch was a stopgap at best. They could go a few hours without contact but then swiftly the disease would rear its head. Worse, the time between needing to at least pat Kyle on the head was shortening until both Pavkovic and John had to spend their time in the mess with Kyle sitting unhappily between the two of them as they bribed her with bits of lettuce. 

 

“We need a more practical solution,” John said around a mouthful of meat loaf. Pavkovic was distracting Kyle with food as John ate and then they had to switch. “I can’t exactly go around hand in hand with this guy for the rest of our life dragging Kyle along with us. I’m just not ready for that level of commitment. No offense Pav.”

 

“Same, sir.”

 

Rodney was strangely jealous, actually. Not because John was suddenly spending all his time with a burly Hungarian military guy but because Kyle had taken a shine to a man who Teyla had once punched in the face during a sparring ‘incident’ when he had made an off colour joke about some of the Athosian women. He glared at her stupid little goaty-beard. Traitor. 

 

“Keller is still running tests on her blood,” Rodney stabbed his way through his own meal. “She’s pretty sure there’s a pheromone or something that she’s giving off the Ancients must have designed as a counter measure. They just need to isolate whatever make it and whip some up. And until then, you can suck it up. You’re the one that decided to adopt a dog.”

 

“Eau de Kyle,” John said a little too fondly. He finished off the last of his food quickly before turning to Pavkovic. “Look, I don’t know about you but all that time in the infirmary has left me a little unpleasant to be around. I’m going to have a shower and I’m not sure I want you to join me.”

 

Pavkovic coughed and glanced at Rodney before saying, “Same, sir.”

 

“I’m going to take Kyle for, like, an hour. Radio me if you pass out.”

 

Pavkovic gave John a strange look but nodded. Kyle, now full of food and energy as usual, didn’t want to be carried but instead ran ahead of them as they walked to John’s quarters. Rodney kept looking between the two, ready to dive for Kyle and shove her in John’s face if he so much as wobbled in his step but John continued unconcerned. When they got there, John stripped off his shirt unceremonious and said, “I’m going to rinse her off too. Jeez, McKay, she looked like she went rolling in the mud, where did you take her when I was out?”

 

“It’s not like she’s well-trained.” Rodney was all too happy to lie down on John’s bed as the man disappeared into the other room. It had been exhausting and he hadn’t had a chance to lie down since that first him. He could nap now. If John took Kyle into the shower room than there was no way he could collapse, there was no way Rodney was going to have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he didn’t suddenly turn that horrible ash-colour again. 

 

But it felt like he had only blinked because he was woken with a start as Kyle bolted out of the room and onto the bed, scattering water everywhere. In a sudden moment of déjà vu, John followed out, only this time in nothing but a towel instead of his boxers. “Damn it, Rodney, the shower’s still broken!”

 

He may or may not have shouted a little as he stomped over to the shower but he felt validated in his irritation. After all, John had several more hours sleep than he did. He turned on the shower (which was working perfectly) with John standing behind him, his arms crossed and eyebrows knitted in disappointment. “But it was just broken-”

 

“Just get in,” Rodney shoved at him and stripped off his own shirt. It wasn’t like he had showered in a while either and this would save some time at least. 

 

It was strange to think that somewhere inside John something was already starting to eat away at his insides as John gently pushed him under the spray. Ancient showers were more functional than Earth showers, they had near perfect water pressure that seemed to respond to Rodney’s mind and it never ran out of hot water. But they still seemed designed for one person so John got close to try and get under the water himself to wet his hair. Rodney found himself hard pressed to complain about that. 

 

Somewhere between John rinsing the shampoo from his hair and Rodney starting to eye parts of John that still seemed to be very healthy, Kyle poked her head back in to see what her humans had gotten up to. Rodney only noticed her because another thing Ancient showers seemed to lack were glass carriers or curtains (exhibitionists, the lot of them). She bleated and got John’s attention too but he just laughed at the uncomfortable way Rodney tried to use the shampoo bottle as a shield

 

“Relax, what’s she going to do? Hold up a score card?”

 

“Yes, yes, thank Colonel Nude French Beach. Some of us prefer to not include barnyard animals in our sex lives. She bites anything that… dangles.”

 

“So there is going to be sex involved?” John wagged his eyebrows but before he could respond, Kyle let out a dejected and bored bleat. The shower cut off suddenly. 

 

“See! Broken!”

 

“I thought you said it was spraying everywhere,” Rodney grumbled and turned it back on. It ran fine, like nothing had happened but then Kyle huffed, angry at being ignored and the water stopped again. John reached to turn it on again but Rodney froze. 

 

“Oh my God.”

 

“What?”

 

“ _Alien psychic goats_!”

 

***

 

“I should have known there would be nothing mundane about a Pegasus goat,” Keller muttered as the test for the ATA gene binged affirmative on the screen. “See that?”

 

There was a gene sequence on the wide screen and Rodney recognised the ATA gene easily. That is, Rodney recognised that it was a gene and he had seen a lot of data about the ATA gene and that image looked a lot like it but he didn’t waste his time on stupid things like memorizing specific genes in the human body so he told Keller that. 

 

“Here,” she scowled and pointed at a highlighted area. “This is an artifical gene, like the one you have. Gene therapy introduces an equation for the body to produce certain chemicals, right? In your case, the things necessary to use Ancient technology.”

 

“If I wanted a biology class I would have wasted my time in undergrad. Get to the point,” Rodney said. 

 

Keller frowned and instead turned her attention to John who was looking at the diagram with an interested squint. “It doesn’t work sometimes because the body rejects the changes, or just doesn’t read the equation. If you can do it properly you can get the body to create just about anything. In Rodney’s case, his equation came from a natural gene carrier but it obviously a copy. It doesn’t have all the same information as someone like you, John. However, this section,” she pointed at the yellow area, “has been changed specifically to produce an antibody. This,” she pulled up another image, “John’s gene right now.” The same section was an angry bright colour on the screen. “Whatever biological weapon the Ancients came up with is attacking it. Kyle is producing what we need to stop the infection in John and Pavkovic.”

 

“So why don’t you do that?” Rodney asked. “It sounds straight forward.”

 

Keller tightened her mouth and said, “Imagine the chemical Kyle is producing is like sap from a maple tree. It’s watered down, there’s not much to extract yet. How do you make maple?”

 

John and Pavkovic turned to Rodney who bristled. “What? Just because I’m Canadian I’m supposed to know that?”

 

“You have to boil it,” Keller headed off a rant. “It need to become more concentrated. I’m not sure how the Ancients expected to harvest the antibody from the blood.”

 

“Well,” John said slowly, looking thoughtfully at Kyle who was sleepily nodding off in his arms. “Don’t they have horns?”

 

Keller nodded thoughtfully. “That would work. If we could get a horn it would probably have what I need to make a more permanent solution. Where can we find an adult?”

 

***

 

Several hours later, Rodney found himself pouring through more databases. His eyes felt dry and numb as he flipped through gate address after gate address. Pavkovic had fallen asleep a while ago, the sitting still over a desk making the much more active man antsy. He had settled in one of the Ancient’s strangely comfortable lounge chairs someone had dragged into the lab for just that purpose and Kyle was snoring softly next to him. John was still awake, though. His eyes were red-rimmed with eyestrain and his hair looked even more tousled than usual but he looked as concentrated on his screen as Rodney. 

 

“This is ridiculous,” Rodney finally shoved away from the desk. “It’s worse than finding a needle in a haystack.”

 

“How could it be worse than that?” John drawled, not pausing. 

 

“With the needle all you need to do it get a super charged magnet. Boom,” he snapped his fingers. “Needle.”

 

“That would be called cheating, Rodney,” John said, voice still dry. “And what if there’s no magnet?”

 

“I can make a magnet,” Rodney scoffed and rubbed at his eyes. “Do you doubt that I could make a magnet?”

 

“Yes,” John said and finally took his eyes off the screen to shoot him a grin. 

 

“Well, fine then,” Rodney stood up. “I’ve got an idea. What address did the Gate dial earlier? When Kyle almost escaped.” Rodney moved around the desk to look over John’s shoulder and shot him an angry look when he saw John quickly close the Freecell game he had open in the corner. John just shrugged and soon he had the Gate address information pulled up from the database.

 

“Uninhabited, vegetation- it might as well be it, right?” Rodney said. “It couldn’t hurt to look.”

 

“I’ll get a team, ready, you get Pavkovic.” 

 

But three hours later, their search was starting to drag on and Rodney found himself running on empty fumes. John had Kyle in his lap now, he had to switch off with Pavkovic because their tolerance was down to fifteen minutes. But as tired as Rodney was he could see that despite the dam contact with Kyle had helped in the short-term it was beginning to tell on John and Pavkovic. They were both paler than before and tired much easier. Kyle, as well, had lost a lot of energy she usually had and had spent the last while content to sit listlessly on which ever man was holding her. 

 

The planet was empty. There was vegetation but nothing larger than a mouse and the plants all seemed to be in a very primative stage of development. They had scanned the planet and done several sweepovers of promising open fields but there was nothing to suggest an animal like Kyle lived here. Dejected, John turned around to head back.

 

Before they could dial back, the Gate activated and John quickly cloaked them. But a welcome voice greeted them over the radio. 

 

“ _John_ ,” Teyla sounded happy to hear his voice. “ _I’m glad you’re alive_.”

 

“That makes two of us,” John smiled though she couldn’t see him. “Did you find the guy?”

 

There was a paused and then she said, “ _Yes, I was able to track him thanks to Rodney's distinct shoe pattern. But I’m not sure how much my information will help you. The man indeed found the young animal a few weeks ago but he was unclear as to where. I’m not sure we can find its proper home._ ”

 

“What was unclear about what he said?” Rodney tapped his fingers impatiently against the controls. He was sitting there as a back up if John started to wavier in his flying. “Did he not know the address?”

 

“ _Oh, that he did know. What I meant was, several of his patrons were unpleased with his services. It was difficult to understand what he was saying because it is often difficult to speak when one has a broken jaw_.”

 

Rodney couldn’t stop himself from cackling aloud. 

 

“ _I did manage to get him to write it down but he wrote down several addresses, one of which you are on now._ ”

 

That at least was a sign they were in the right direction. It suddenly didn’t feel like a wasted effort, and Rodney couldn’t help but grin as he took down the other addresses Teyla gave. They cut off transmission so they could dial out but before John could, the fourth member of their emergency team, a field nurse, cleared his throat and said, “Colonel, sir?”

 

John glanced back to see Pavkovic ashen-faced and trembling. Rodney took over the controls without a word as John walked back and settled on the seat next to the other man, placing Kyle’s hindquarters in the Sergeant’s lap. “As fast as you can, Rodney.”

 

It took them until the third planet when they were doing a sweep of the a penninsula before Rodney let out a triumphant shout. “Look, look!”

 

John abandoned Kyle and Pavkovic to wobble to the view screen. 

 

It was spectacular, a lush green field set on the base of the pennisula dotted with dark, four legged shapes grazing peacefully. The rest of the planet was uninhabited but there looked to be about a hundred animals in the open air. A few raised their heads to look as they passed overhead. 

 

Rodney cloaked the ship as to not spook the herd and settled close to a stream by the end of a wood. Several of the animals did start at the wind and impact on the ground but most just looked curiously as Rodney opened the back, letting the fresh air in. 

 

Kyle, who hadn’t lifted her head for the past half hour, stiffened suddenly under Pavkovic hand. With a serge of energy, she shoved off the seat, tumbling to the ground in a pile of long-legged gracelessness and bleated though it came out more like a whisper. 

 

“We definitely found them,” John’s voice was raspy but his eyes were bright as they stepped off Jumper into the cool afternoon breeze. Kyle darted out past them before Rodney could stop her. There was no way of telling if this was her herd, or whether or not the animals were violent but whatever she smelled seemed to give her an ungodly amount of strength. Rodney jogged after her but slowed when he got closer to the actual animals. 

 

Kyle was small, it hadn’t been an exageration to think of her as a baby-goat in terms of her size. Rodney had thought the adults would be more similar to Kyle, maybe thigh height at most. But these were beasts, about the size of a large horse and while Kyle looked wide-eyed and babyish a large, dark brown animal fixed Rodney with a stern stare. And there was the last difference between Kyle and the older animals; a giant double twisted horn coming out of the animal’s forehead. Rodney had seen deer up close before. He had been to enough wildlife parks as a child to be able to touch the overfed, greedy deer population at Marineland. Those antler had hurt but they had been dulled. Thesehorns looked horns looked nothing like the velvety, soft ones of those pushy ones. These horns looked sharp enough to spear him if the animal had enough of a mind too. 

 

And the way it was eyeing him, Rodney certainly wasn’t going to underestimate it. 

 

Kyle had gotten ahead of him now but had slowed, still bleating though her voice was raspy and dry. She looked around confused but none of the other animals approached her aggressively so Rodney caught up to her. She stopped and gave him a sad look as he patted her head comfortingly. 

 

“Rodney!”

 

John hadn’t tried to follow Rodney, instead he had stuck close to the stream and was waving at him. Kyle followed Rodney as he jogged over to John though her step was tired and her tail slumped. 

 

One of the creatures was resting by the stream and John was crouched next to it, his hand extended in a non-threatening gesture. It was smaller than the other ones, more delicate and maybe a bit younger with an elegant arch in it’s neck. It also has a long, brilliant white marking down it’s face. Rodney wasn’t sure if it was resting or injured but it made to stand up as it stretched to smell at his hand. 

 

“Be careful!” Rodney hissed, not wanting to spook it. But as soon as he spoke, Kyle caught up to him and gave an excited squeal. She barrelled through his legs, knocking him to the ground, and the dark brown horse-thing jerked it’s head away from John’s hand. It scrambled to it’s feet just as Kyle reached it, and they met, nose to nose, sniffing and trembling with half-started snorts disappearing into clearly exuberouant grunts. 

 

“I guess that’s mom,” John started to pull himself to his feet and Rodney grabbed his elbow to haul him up the rest of the way. He sagged his weigh onto Rodney as they wanted the mother-daughter reunion  and, as happy as Rodney was to have found Kyle’s family, he was anxious to figure out how to haul one of those bad boy horns back to Keller without being made into a shish-kebab. 

 

“How are we supposed to get it back?” John echoed Rodney’s thoughts. “I don’t think we should just slice it off. Do you think that would kill it?”

 

Rodney was about to open his mouth and state he would eat a million unicorn steaks if it meant getting one of those horns but Kyle trotted back to them as if to show them off. Rodney tightened his hold as the older animal approached them more slowly but Kyle’s mother seemed to know to be mindful of her horse. She twisted her neck to sniff at John’s vest, sneezing as she smelled the gunpowder and then lipped affectionately at a buckle. 

 

“That’s a good girl,” John cooed and slowly reached a hand to pat her on the next. “Good pretty lady.”

 

“Yes,” Rodney agreed nervously as she turned her inspection to him. “Nice unicorn. Don’t bite.”

 

But Kyle’s mother shook her head and snorted, as if to clear the smell from her nostrils. Rodney frowned, it wasn’t his fault her daughter had been assaulting Atlantis’s showers, but before he could do anything she leaned forward and rubbed the space between her eye and ear against his vest. Rodney tried to jump back but John held him still. “She’s just scratching, let her get on with it.”

 

“If my allergies flare up-” But the words trailed off as whatever itch the mother had was satisfied and with small ripping sound, the magestic horn she had been carefully keeping out of the way, tilted to the side and fell to the ground. 

 

Satisfied, she butting her now clear forehead against Rodney’s shoulder and wheeled around, trotting off with Kyle following adoringly at her heels. 

 

“It must be like an antler,” John said, his voice a little stupid as they both stared at the horn on the ground. 

 

“That’s… fortunate,” Rodney picked up gingerly but it was solid and bloodless in his hands. “I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Let’s get this back to Keller.”

 

John frowned up took the horn from him and was able to straighten up. “That was terrible.”

 

***

 

It seemed the horn had the same effect as Kyle had because both John and Pavkovic were able to stagger from the Jumper under their own power. Keller had already been working on a way to extract the chemicals she needed while they were gone so soon both men were back in their respective beds watching the medicine slowly drip into their IV. 

 

“They must use the gate to migrate,” Teyla and Ronon had settled in the room to make sure John was alright. Pavkovic, who had been worse off than John to start, had fallen asleep as soon as he had gotten into bed. Teyla had given him a weathered look but turned her back on him as he drifted off. “Kyle must had dialled a gate address she was familiar with. I wonder if they knoew instinctually if a gate is safe or if the gate addresses are passed down. It’s fascinating to think about it. Perhaps we can learn to track their movements.”

 

“Perhaps,” John agreed. “I mean, we should make sure Kyle acclimatizing back alright.”

 

Rodney gave him a hard look then blurted out, “You want to ride one.”

 

“What?” John scoffed. “Not I don’t!”

 

“You actually do!”

 

Ronon was fiddling with the oxygen tanks in the corner and turned to say over his shoulder. “His family had a bunch of those things. It was weird, the barn was bigger than the house. It was like they worshipped them or something.”

 

If Rodney looked close enough he could see John blushing so he laughed out loud. “I can’t believe it, you’re like a five year old girl! Should I get you a pony for your next birthday? Or, better yet, a unicorn!”

 

“A duolituus,” Teyla corrected but she was laughing too. 

 

“Screw you, guys,” John huffed. "I meant it more that, if one guy knew where to find them he could tell a whole lot of other people. And who knows what else the Ancients modified them to cure?"

 

"Fine, yes, we'll do it," Rodney rolled his eyes. "You're lucky I put a subderal tracked in Kyle."

 

"You what?"

 

"I didn't want her sneaking off, not when you two needed her in constant contact."

 

"It might mean you have to deal with the zoologists," John commented and Rodney let out a shudder. 

 

They talked for a while and eventually Teyla and Ronon left for sleep. Rodney found himself nodding off as well but he couldn't find it in him to leave. Instead, he settled in a chair and bitched at John about how terrible it was going to be for his back if he slept here but John just laughed him off and held out a hand. Rodney clasped it, feeling awkward and fourteen again because no grown man should feel the kind of comfort he did just from the simple skin on skin contact. 

 

"Tomorrow I'll crash at your quarters," John said sleepily. 

 

Rodney just nodded and found himself drifting off, the peaceful warm  _thumpthumpthump_  finally threading through his body like a soothing balm, back ache or no back ache. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
